Darkestville Castle Review (PS4)

There was a time when the pretentious gamers could pick from quite a selection of point and click adventure games, a period when creativity was in full bloom. Long gone are the days of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, or Grim Fandango, but lately, we can see a resurgence of the old adventure games on the actual console generation. The most recent example is Darkestville Castle launched initially in 2017 for PC. Does the old daemon infested castle deserve another visit or is it already covered by dust? Read on to find out.

Following the classic style of adventure games from the golden era, the background of the game suggests a horror tale. It starts with a peaceful village which one day receives a mysterious and unwanted gift, a baby daemon. Growing up, the hellspawn Cid becomes the terror of this godforsaken corner of a fantasy world, playing pranks on the peaceful inhabitants of the village. While he nurtures dreams of world domination, his tricks are more of a nuisance for his neighbors, rather than real threats to the integrity of the world. Everything changes one day when three daemon hunters are hired to capture Cid, by his arch-nemesis Dan Teapot.

But just like the Monkey Island series, Darkestville Castle proves to be more humorous and not at all scary. It is an old school point and click adventure in which you can interact with several objects and using your wits along with your inventory you have to solve not really difficult puzzles by combining the right objects. The prologue which serves as a tutorial does a great job in presenting the mechanics of the game and introducing the peculiar humor of the developers. There will be no surprises for the fans of the genre since Darkestville Castle follows the golden formula which made Days of the Tentacle or Full Throttle so successful.

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You will visit not just a handful of neighborhoods from Darkestville, but your adventures will culminate with a trip to the 5th circle of hell. The dialogues along with the comments of the protagonist about the different items or different characters have the potential to make you smile, but there will be no real laughter and do not expect anything truly original. While there are moments that can be described as enjoyable, the game feels a bit flat. And very, very short.

Although Darkestville Castle has its own charm it is by no means challenging. The puzzles are quite obvious, and the entire game can be finished in just around 4 hours. It seems that developers focused more on building an atmosphere based on nostalgia, rather than delivering a memorable game. There are no characters to go down in the history of gaming, there are no scenes which have the potential to make cameos in future games, there is nothing really outstanding. Darkestville Castle is a cute adventure game, but nothing more.

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The interesting premises, the references to other pop culture creations and the masterfully crafted environments are just not enough. There is no real plot twist, and nothing we did not see already in other games. Also, there is no real variety, because the solutions to the puzzles turn very quickly into a routine. There is no brain twister, no real struggle to solve a challenge. It is enough if you pay attention to your surroundings and dialogues. Once you solved the first few puzzles, you will have discovered the recipe used by the developers in all of the Darkestville Castle.

From a technical point of view, the game feels stale. Although the hand-drawn graphics match the atmosphere of the game, the final visuals feel lacking. Overall you would have higher visual expectations for a game launched in 2020. The audio part is completely forgettable, due to the flat tunes and the average voiceover. I've found some hiccups in the language here and there, which can be explained by the German origins of the developers.

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The Good

The Bad

Conclusion